ppose you will.

"I remit you a Post Office order for your fare, and will pay your
return journey.

"If you want clothes to come in, order what you consider suitable, and
desire that the bill be sent to me; I will pay it immediately, to an
amount not exceeding eight or nine pounds, and if you will let me know
what train you will come by, I will send the carriage to meet you.
Believe me, Your affectionate father, T. PONTIFEX."

Of course there could be no hesitation on Ernest's part. He could afford
to smile now at his father's offering to pay for his clothes, and his
sending him a Post Office order for the exact price of a second-class
ticket, and he was of course shocked at learning the state his mother was
said to be in, and touched at her desire to see him. He telegraphed that
he would come down at once. I saw him a little before he started, and
was pleased to see how well his tailor had done by him. Towneley himself
could not have been appointed more becomingly. His portmanteau, his
railway wrapper, everything he had about him, was in keeping. I thought
he had grown much better-looking than he had been at two or three and
twenty. His year and a half of peace had effaced all the ill effects of
his previous suffering, and now that he had become actually rich there
was an air of _insouciance_ and good humour upon his face, as of a man
with whom everything was going perfectly right, which would have made a
much plainer man good-looking. I was proud of him and delighted with
him. "I am sure," I said to myself, "that whatever else he may do, he
will never marry again."

The journey was a painful one. As he drew near to the station and caught
sight of each familiar feature, so strong was the force of association
that he felt as though his coming into his aunt's money had been a dream,
and he were again returning to his father's house as he had returned to
it from Cambridge for the vacations. Do what he would, the old dull
weight of _home-sickness_ began to oppress him, his heart beat fast as he
thought of his approaching meeting with his father and mother, "and I
shall have," he said to himself, "to kiss Charlotte."

Would his father meet him at the station? Would he greet him as though
nothing had happened, or would he be cold and distant? How, again, would
he take the news of his son's good fortune? As the train drew up to the
platform, Ernest's eye ran hurriedly over the few people